Saudade
by Cenodoxus
Summary: 13 years of damage isn't fixed in a day. A series of vignettes as Elsa assumes the responsibilities of queenship, fends off a suitor, rebuilds her relationship with her sister, and wonders what might have happened if things had turned out a bit differently.


**Author's Note**: There's a popular fan theory that _Tangled_ and _Frozen_ exist in the same universe, and that the king of Arendelle and queen of Corona were siblings. This story assumes that the fan theory is true because: a). it's too cool not to be: b). it's plausible given Rapunzel and Eugene's presence at the coronation, and: c). it would explain the king's desire to hide Elsa's powers from the world, because he knew that his sister's child had been kidnapped for her own. Given this, Corona and Arendelle would be allied (or at least friendly) states, and Elsa/Anna would be aware they had a cousin. This won't be immediately relevant, but will appear in future chapters.

_Saudade_ is a Portuguese term that does not have an exact translation in English.

**Disclaimer**: I do not own _Frozen_, _Tangled_, or its characters.

* * *

Elsa found herself on the edge of an exhaustion so all-consuming that, strangely enough, it was difficult to sleep.

The moon was up. The light through the window of the royal quarters made the hunt for something to wear a bit easier. In the weeks before the coronation, her closets had been filled with stiff, tailored clothes all embroidered with the royal crest, and something about wearing them just to raid the kitchen felt wrong. After pushing aside a new set of skirts, she found an old blue robe crumpled in the back, and then started the hunt for some slippers.

The thin cotton of the nightgown and robe against her skin should have been airy and comfortable on a warm summer night, but it was still an intrusion. Gerda had had a discreet word with her about the ice-gown's being too cold for ordinary people to be around, so Elsa had reluctantly disposed of it. She could make it again anytime she wanted, she told herself, and the knowing was more important than possession. Still, the cotton was an ever-present reminder that she couldn't be, and never really had been, the snow queen alone.

Finding a pair of slippers in the bottom of a cedar chest, she left, closing the door quietly behind her. She paused for a moment to listen, but there was no sound apart from the distant patrol of the palace guards. The carpet and slippers muffled her footsteps; with luck, none of the servants would wake. The day had been an endless parade of ministers, ambassadors, merchants, and citizens, and she suspected that her exhaustion had more to do with the inability to escape people than it did with being physically tired. Reaching the end, she turned down a flight of stairs and padded into a small corridor in the direction of the palace kitchen.

She wasn't as alone as she'd thought. Anna's back was to the entrance, her spoon echoing in the empty kitchen as she dished a generous serving of ice cream into a bowl. Elsa stopped in the doorway, suppressing the instinct to flee and wondering whether she had it in her to endure another conversation.

Anna finally sensed that someone was there, and whipped around quickly, hiding the bowl behind her as she turned. The younger of the royal sisters looked distinctly guilty for a moment, and then her face cleared when she saw Elsa. "Elsa! Hey! Sorry, I thought you were Mrs. Hall for a moment."

"Hey." Elsa shifted awkwardly. "I didn't mean to bother you. I can leave you by yourself if you want to be alone."

"Of course not. Why are you up?"

"I couldn't sleep. I figured I'd come down and get something to eat."

Anna gestured to the icebox. "I can get you a bowl of ice cream if you want."

"I'm good, but thanks. I didn't have time for much supper, so I thought I'd make a sandwich or something."

"Sounds good." Anna pulled herself up onto the massive oak table and sat, swinging her legs. "There's some lefse in the cupboard over there" – she pointed with her spoon, sending a small gobbet of ice cream flying – "but if you want something a bit thicker, there's half a loaf of rye in the pantry, although it's a little stale, and we've got fish, ham, mustard, eggs, cheese, pretty much everything. Mrs. Hall's also hiding some olives on the top shelf if you want, but don't take too many or she'll know somebody stole."

Elsa looked at her askance. "You seem to know your way around here pretty well for someone who's not supposed to be in the kitchen."

"Well, yeah. I mean, I know we're not supposed to be running around here too much, but nobody's here. And it is technically _our_ kitchen."

The knowledge that other people sometimes felt the same way she did was still a novelty to someone who'd spent 13 years in isolation. "I hoped I wouldn't run into any of the servants on the way down here," Elsa admitted. "I know it's stupid to feel like I'm going to get caught sneaking around my own home, or that the servants can make me go back to bed, but it still feels weird."

"You could write a law saying that anyone who bothers you between 10 pm and 6 am will be executed."

"Somehow I don't think the council will go for that."

"You never know until you try."

Elsa laughed and moved toward the pantry. "I guess you're right. I think I'll just have some bread and cheese." Anna nodded and went back to eating ice cream.

It had been five days since Elsa's return to Arendelle. The sisters had made a point of trying to eat supper together every night no matter how busy things were, but tonight's had been overrun by a line of irritable ambassadors waiting to present their credentials to the new queen. Between the sheer number of them and the apologies and reassurances she felt obligated to give concerning recent events, she hadn't been able to get away at dinnertime. A servant had been dispatched with a note telling Anna to eat without her, and she felt bad.

As Anna had said, the bread in the pantry was a little stale, but not badly so. She cut herself two slices and put a handful of strawberries on a plate. "You said we had some cheese?"

"Some fancy French ones are in the icebox on the bottom shelf, but there's also some gjetost. I'd eat that; I think they're saving the really nice stuff for the reception you're giving for the trade guilds on Wednesday."

"I didn't even know I was giving a reception on Wednesday."

"You are, or at least I think you are. It's on the calendar on the wall over there, next to all the purchase orders for the kitchen and wine cellar." Anna pointed again, and then spoke through a mouthful of ice cream. "Probably around 200, maybe 250 people assuming everyone shows up. Dad said that they usually don't, but you're new, so I guess more people will come."

Elsa looked. Anna was right about the date, and probably right about everything else. She apparently knew a great deal more about court goings-on (and even the contents of the palace larders) than Elsa had ever suspected. "You should be queen, not me. I don't know any of this stuff."

"I only know what Dad used to talk about. I don't think I'd be any good at it."

"Can't be worse than me. And -" Elsa suppressed a shudder, "God, I just don't want to do another big event right now. You should always want to be around people if you're queen, and I just don't."

"You can cancel it if you don't want to go."

"I don't think I'll be canceling anything for a while. I'm just going to show up and stand there apologizing to anyone who'll listen for almost killing them."

Anna dawdled over her bowl. "You shouldn't. It's not really your fault."

"It's completely my fault."

"Yeah, but … no. It's not _really_ your fault."

"I don't know if anyone in Arendelle sees it that way." Having put a plate together, she pulled a stool next to Anna, who was still perched on the big table. She cut a slice of gjetost for her bread and ate it. "I want to be a good ruler, but I didn't get off to a good start."

"Well …" Anna hedged. "I don't really know what people think. Personally I think it's too early to say it's one thing or another. But they keep coming to your ice rink in the courtyard. That's something, right? That makes them happy."

"Maybe." Elsa cut another slice.

"People really like Olaf too."

"It's hard not to." Olaf had been such a hit with the local children that he was out of the palace for long stretches. The merchants also liked him because he attracted people to the local business district. It struck Elsa as strangely funny that the most immediately useful thing she'd done as head of state was create tourist attractions.

"Speaking of Olaf, where is he?"

"Kai said he wanted to watch some of the ships unloading in port tonight. We're getting a big shipment of new cannon and muskets from Magdeburg, and there's a full moon, so they were going to work until late. I said it was okay as long as he didn't get in anyone's way."

They sat in companionable silence for a little while as Elsa finished the last of her bread and cheese. She started pulling the leaves off her strawberries. Without comment, Anna slipped off the table, retrieved a paring knife from a drawer, and held it out to her.

Elsa accepted it. "Thanks. I didn't want to use the same knife I had for the cheese."

"Good, because that's gross. Do you want sugar?"

"No, plain is fine."

Anna hopped back up on the table. "Do you worry a lot about what people will think about the magic?"

The answer was yes, because Elsa wasn't sure exactly what kind of control she really had over it, but this wasn't the time to talk about it. "Long-term, I'm not … I don't really know what to think. For now, I'm not sure it's a good idea to do anything other than little things like the ice rink. I just feel like everything I could do with snow or ice right now would make people nervous, and they have every right to be."

"You're pretty hard on yourself."

"I have to be."

Anna started to say something but thought better of it. As Elsa cut her strawberries, she dragged her spoon through the growing puddle of cream at the bottom of her bowl. She held it out. "My ice cream's melting. Give it a boost?"

Elsa set down the knife and touched a finger to the bowl gently. The dessert immediately refroze, much to Anna's delight. "Thanks. See, you're useful!"

Elsa had to laugh. "Yeah, that'll be my diplomatic outreach. I'll make ice rinks for people and keep their ice cream from melting."

Anna was poking the newly re-formed ice cream. "That's funny. I thought it might be like the stuff you get when ice cream melts and refreezes in the icebox. It isn't any good then. You made it like new."

"That's because the stuff that refreezes is always clumped. You have to break the ice crystals apart so they don't stick together much. See." Elsa held up a strawberry. "I can eat it whole, or I can cut it into littler pieces. With ice cream, smaller is better."

Anna dumped a spoonful on her plate. "Well, I'd say you've earned some, and it'll be good with the strawberries. I wish I'd known you could do that when we were little. I'd have bugged you to help me make it all the time."

"You did. Do you really not remember?"

"No. Well, I remember sledding and making snowmen and sliding around on ponds a lot, but I guess that was all fake."

Anna's voice held something that Elsa couldn't quite place. She took a spoonful of ice cream and ate it very slowly, trying to think of the best way to respond. Every so often, she realized just how much they still had to talk about. They were visiting the subject of their childhoods in small feints, touching it briefly and then darting away before the real pain started, never lingering. "I don't … well, sort of. When the troll fixed you when you were little, he said something about taking the magic but leaving the fun. You probably remember the basics of what happened, just not how we did it. So I – wait. What are you doing?"

Anna was inspecting her ice cream again from all sides with a critical eye. "Oh, I'm still listening, I promise. Just checking for raisins."

"It's mint chocolate chip, and I definitely don't have raisin powers."

"Oh, it's not you. I still have to look. Mom used to have the servants put them in my desserts so I'd eat something healthy. Mrs. Hall still does it sometimes."

The thought of the tyrannical palace cook still trying to trick Anna into eating better made Elsa smile again. "I didn't know that."

"You weren't at many family dinners."

"I wasn't," Elsa admitted. "I missed a lot." Touch, pain, leave.

"Well, you don't have to miss any more if you don't want to." Anna put the spoon in her mouth, and then sat up suddenly, cocking her head. "You heard that, right?"

It was the guard horn signaling a shift change, which meant it was sometime around 3:00 am. The palace baker would arrive soon to start the day's work, and the sisters had to leave unless they wanted to get caught. Elsa quickly slid her strawberry tops into the bin of kitchen scraps and moved to the sink to wash her plate and knives. Anna swallowed the rest of her ice cream in a rush and waved madly to stop her.

"No! Don't wash them! It'll take too long. Just take them back to your room and hide them under the bed. If you pull them out at breakfast or lunch and add them to the dishes on the table, the servants won't know the difference."

"Anna, you have devoted _way_ too much thought to this." Still, she picked up her plate and made for the door.

Anna followed. "Yeah, well, I still haven't been caught. By the way, I think it's really funny that you're queen now and you're still scared of Mrs. Hall."

"Anna, everyone should be scared of Mrs. Hall."


End file.
